Film Openings & Analysing Previous Student's Work

In today's lesson with Dan we watched a documentary on film openings andd learnt the following:

• "A good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn't know too little" because certain amout of information to the audience can limit their interest

• Thomas Sutcliffe says "Films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many different types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irrestistible". He means a way of attracting the audience's attention by making them want to watch the whole film

We then analysed previous students' work on their choice of location, camerawork, editing, lighting, and their use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. My favourite video was Video5 because it attracted me the most in the audience, I understand what the film was about as it had different technique elements to keep me engaged to the film. I liked the way the opening didnt have too many settings. there were only was two locations (police office and essex road station) The opening seemed well planned and a lot of time put into producing. And finally, the use of sound; the non diegetic sound created more of a suspense. The editing sequences were shown in slow motion and there was little dramatic editing. There were various angle shots e.g match cuts.

The thriller that i disliked the most was Video6 because the clip showed poor planning, showed lack of media techniques and it was all rather messed up. And it showed through their insufficient footage. I also didn't like the dialogue they used and thought the clip looked far from being a thriller movie but more like it was rushed and not enough time put into planning.